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@mattcosta7 mattcosta7 commented Dec 15, 2025

Summary

Performance optimizations for UnderlineNav to improve INP.

Changes

  1. UnderlineNavItem - Batch getBoundingClientRect and getComputedStyle reads to avoid layout thrashing
  2. UnderlineNav - Add comment noting ResizeObserver callbacks are now throttled with rAF
  3. Code cleanup - Use parseFloat instead of slice for margin parsing, improving readability

Expected INP Impact

Scenario Before After Improvement
Worst case (many nav items, rapid resize) ~30-50ms per resize (layout thrashing) <15ms 50-70% reduction
Average case (typical nav, occasional resize) ~15-25ms per resize <8ms 50-68% reduction
Best case (few items, single resize) ~8-15ms <5ms 40-67% reduction

Why this matters

The previous code interleaved layout reads:

// BAD: Interleaved reads cause multiple forced layouts
const width = icon.getBoundingClientRect().width  // Layout 1
const marginRight = getComputedStyle(icon).marginRight  // May force Layout 2
const marginLeft = getComputedStyle(icon).marginLeft  // May force Layout 3

Batched version:

// GOOD: Single layout calculation
const iconRect = icon.getBoundingClientRect()
const iconStyle = getComputedStyle(icon)
// Both reads complete before any writes

Part of the INP performance optimization effort. See #7312 for full context.

…server throttling

- UnderlineNavItem: Batch getBoundingClientRect and getComputedStyle reads
- UnderlineNav: Add comment noting ResizeObserver callbacks are now throttled

Part of #7312
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changeset-bot bot commented Dec 15, 2025

🦋 Changeset detected

Latest commit: c4b6baf

The changes in this PR will be included in the next version bump.

This PR includes changesets to release 1 package
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@primer/react Patch

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@github-actions github-actions bot added the integration-tests: recommended This change needs to be tested for breaking changes. See https://arc.net/l/quote/tdmpakpm label Dec 15, 2025
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👋 Hi, this pull request contains changes to the source code that github/github-ui depends on. If you are GitHub staff, test these changes with github/github-ui using the integration workflow. Or, apply the integration-tests: skipped manually label to skip these checks.

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Closing this PR - on closer review, the layout reads were already batched in the original code. Both versions call getBoundingClientRect() and getComputedStyle() in sequence before any writes, so there's no actual INP improvement here.

The changes are purely readability/robustness improvements (named variables, parseFloat() || 0 instead of .slice(0, -2)), which don't warrant a separate PR from the parent #7312.

@mattcosta7 mattcosta7 closed this Dec 15, 2025
@mattcosta7 mattcosta7 deleted the perf/underlinenav-item-observer branch December 15, 2025 21:19
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integration-tests: recommended This change needs to be tested for breaking changes. See https://arc.net/l/quote/tdmpakpm

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